allyoueverthinkabout

Full-Throttle Schools

2009-12-09T17:35:00.000-08:00

Schools are for functional kids. For the non-functional, other approaches must be tried.

Functional kids are like functional cars: they run, they get on the road, and they negotiate the terrain of life. They may not all run with the same speed or energy efficiency, but they run. This is analogous to the students who are preparing to become adult citizens. Like the cars in the analogy, they are being equipped to meet fundamental standards: they must know how to read, write, do basic math, engage in critical thinking, have an awareness of science and the environment, and of our history and civic institutions. How well they can do beyond these basic standards is analogous to whether a car can meet new and rigorous environmental and safety standards. Some may, others may not. But they all have a right to be on the road.

Just as car manufacturers want to improve the quality and efficiency of their products, so educators want to improve the quality of their students' educations. So they set certain standards, hoping to gradually improve the quality of learning as time goes on.

But this is where the analogy breaks down. Because students are living, conscious beings. Unlike cars, they must be allowed to fail. If school is like life -- if life is a school -- failure teaches lessons that can ultimately make the person stronger. But there are two types of failure -- a failure that derives from lack of teaching ability or lack of concern on the part of the teacher or lack of resources on the part of the institution, and failure that comes as the knowing consequence of the student's own behavior. If a child is not ready, or willing, to apply him or herself, of if his home environment is so difficult as to preclude his being successful in learning, this is not the fault of the institution. And it will be unavoidable in some cases. These students will have to learn from these setbacks in their own way and under their own power. Can a school substitute for a loving home? Sometimes, and sometimes not.

So because schools are not the same as factories, and students are not the same as cars, educators must be prepared to realize that some students will not succeed and must be allowed to fail. Not easily, not without the greatest effort to stop failure from happening. But with the knowledge that if there is a benchmark for success, it must take this reality into account.

An educational benchmark can't be 100% success -- 100% on or above grade level -- because this means one of two things: if the benchmark is set too low, achieving it will not challenge most students and the institution will be failing in its mission. If tests and standards are dumbed down to allow everyone to pass, the school will be failing the student who needs the edge of difficulty to hone their skills and stimulate their intellect. If the benchmark is set too high, pressure on teachers and students becomes unbearable, and ways have to be found to expel the poorly performing students, while teachers will face discipline which is unfair and punitive. Punitively high standards will create a permanent underclass, as those who fail will be marginalized.

If the benchmark is set to an appropriate level of difficulty, the demand that both students and teachers meet unrealistic goals will not have to be satisified. Occasional failure will be accepted from a relatively small group of students -- failure that does not mean ostracism, but that means acceptance and understanding. These metaphorical cars may not meet the toughest standards, but they can still be permitted to ride the highways of this land and find their own destiny.

Making the Scene at Macy's

2009-11-27T09:27:00.000-08:00

Today I made the scene with Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. Macy's, the world's largest store (OK, maybe GUM in Moscow is larger, and I'm sure they have something in Dubai that makes Macy's look like a bodega, whatever) on the busiest shopping day of the year, Black Friday aka "Buy Nothing Day." Rev. Billy and his choir preached (Don't support those Corporate CEO's!) gave out a Buy Nothing Day Fun Page for the kids, and I gave out a slightly more edgy flier about environmental crisis.

What struck me as soon as I got out of the D train from Brooklyn at 4:45 AM(which opens right into the JC Penney at 32nd Street and 6th) was the pleasant mood everyone was in. Two ladies coming up the stairs with me were joyful. "It's open already!" they said about JC Penney. It was all light and happy above ground (except for the guy selling counterfeit DVD's on the sidewalk; for him it was just another day.) A big crowd of at least 750 people was packed into a 60-foot wide pen in front of Macy's. Rev. Billy was exhorting people not to go inside: "It's not too late to save your soul."

I started giving out my fliers about species extinction and consumerism. People took them gladly. After giving out a few, I adopted a new pitch: "Special offer today." Now, everyone wanted one of my fliers, which showed an extinct species of frog. Rev. Billy liked the flier, too, and changed his message for a bit, preaching about, "Global Warming inside -- all these products, they're harming the environment. It's not too late to shop shopping and save the earth."

A young and enthusiastic Latino couple walked by and I trust one of my fliers at the woman, about 25 years' old, accompanied by her boyfriend. She had the same twinkle in her eye as everyone else. "What's is about?", she asked. I explained that not only were many of the products at Macy's producing poisons that were harmful to animals and plants, but that the world's growing population was pushing native species to extinction. She nodded. Her boyfriend or husband got my argument immediately. "Yeah, he said, when they make the products, the chemicals they use are toxic," he said. "Too many people," he agreed. "there's not enough room for the animals."

His girlfriend gave me a big smile. With a thumbs up, they went into Macy's.

A Letter to Bob Herbert of the New York Times

2009-06-28T10:35:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr. Herbert,

Let me introduce myself. I’m a 52-year old New Yorker, who has worked in public relations and tried a few times to pitch ideas (unsuccessfully) to your column. I primarily write for labor unions in the New York City area. I am a registered Democrat, and have voted in every election since I was 18.

I am a fan of your column, and the consistently progressive views you put forward. But with your latest column, “No Recovery In Sight,” on the need to create jobs for the 30 million unemployed and under-employed, there’s a fly in the ointment – a very big one. That fly is the connection between economic growth and climate change, and the necessary connection between jobs and economic growth.

It isn’t hard to make the argument that economic growth is bad for the planet, because it uses up irreplaceable natural resources and creates pollution, including greenhouse gases. Can economic growth be good for humanity, if it is bad for the planet? Does the fact that we are ushering in the sixth great extinction of other species important? Are we bound to honor the life with which we share the planet? Is managed economic growth possible, which is both good for us and good for the natural world on which we depend? What if it isn’t? What if we’ve already gone too far?

My objection to your column is its implication is that any new job is a good job, no matter what it means for the environment. You can buy a dozen brands of toothpaste in Rite-Aid, but I suppose you would champion it if I created the Brooklyn Toothpaste Company and put 20 kids to work making yet another brand. The net effect of all this extra toothpaste would be to use energy and create packaging that isn’t renewable, and produce pollution that is hard to clean up. But at least the kids are getting a paycheck!

Economic growth has brought with it a revolution in how work is done. It takes many fewer people today to do work that occupied large armies of laborers in the past. This is especially true of agriculture. Yet we have many more people in the world than ever before, with much less necessary work for them to do than ever before. Bring on the toothpaste factories, and more mountains of stuff!

Continuing economic growth, which you advocate, is leading us towards environmental disaster. If you believe the scientists – and I notice you haven’t written much on global warming – we can expect sea levels to rise by between 3 and 6 feet by 2100 – and perhaps much more, if the west Antarctic ice sheet and the ice covering Greenland melts. We could see a rise in sea levels of 60 feet by 2100, if the worst predictions come true. That puts much of Manhattan under water. About the only places that would be spared include my comfortable digs in Sunset Park, the highest point in Brooklyn. But I wouldn’t be able to take the subway into the City, assuming there would be anything to visit.

The question is, how much credence do you give these predictions, and are you willing to modify your economic growth flag-waving to accommodate them? Ignoring the contradictions between economic growth and responsible environmentalism isn’t a stance for a responsible journalist. Please write a column illuminating this issue.

Sincerely,

Alan Saly
Sunset Park
Brooklyn

The Worst that Could Happen

2009-03-17T10:47:00.000-07:00

No, it's not that old song by the Brooklyn Bridge, although that was a wonderful tune.

It's another meditation on life.

I've got my kit bag and my crank radio (not the one tuned to Rush, the one that's hand operated so I can do without power). I know about the maximal spread of fallout and what a dirty bomb can do. I know how to purify water. Would a terror attack be the worst that could happen?

I'm often reminded of my mother's account of the seige of Budapest. It was a time of privation -- but those who lived through it came out of the experience with their hopes and dreams intact -- the same way we would come out of a terror attack, if we survived. During the seige no one had anything, just enough food for survival -- lipton soup. And after the war, of course, everyone's property was gone. There was no money, only the determination to find a way to give that would create a cycle of giving and receiving, and, ultimately joy and prosperity.

How much worse it would be -- that suffering through a difficult time -- to know that you have actually done something that compromised your dreams or your ability to hope.

The worst that could happen would be to lose your spiritual bearings, to no longer know what was meaningful or -- even worse -- to know that you had betrayed what, in your heart of hearts, was the best in you: the ability to give love and honesty without holding back, and without fearing the consequences of being your best.

So as we strive to avert economic calamity, let's remember that the money thing is often not the important thing, necessary though it is. The important thing is striving to realize our inner value.

What People Do

2009-01-05T15:31:00.000-08:00

Another commonplace essay that states the obvious.

I recall a wonderful quote – I’m not sure who said it, perhaps Juliet Schorr – that this is the first generation of which it’s commonplace to frame the basic question, “who are you?” in a way that sets an entirely new standard. In ages past, one had a profession and was identified by it; I am an artisan, a bricklayer, a warrior. Today, one may have a job, but the question of what one is, is still undefined. I work for the City of New York as an Engineer; I’m a Caribbean American. But what is my essence? I only “do” what I aspire to do, and what I aspire to do is not defined by my job. Individual unfoldment has taken center stage.

Hey, it’s a long road. If life is a climb to reach mountain peaks, I was never satisfied with it. So I sought fulfillment in the moment itself. And I found a lot of it. Very true that most people see their lives defined by what they lack – especially in the Western world. Comparisons become overwhelming; the reason to strive, and the way to define where one has been. Then, as one grows very old, the mere experiences of pleasure seem to become defining. But still one may be impelled to compare one’s pleasure with that of another – confounding and confusing. The only person whose pleasure can be compared to your own is your lover’s, because you know her, and her pleasure often becomes yours. But this isn’t really a comparison at all, it’s a unity in which comparison disappears.

I remember with some embarrassment one afternoon where I sat on a sofa between two beautiful women – the two most beautiful women I knew. Each one knew me, appreciated me, and wanted me (at least one of them did). I relaxed and let my arms out on the ridge of the sofa; the moment was timeless. Here was my mountain peak. The women got annoyed (at least one of them). The purpose of introducing two supremely beautiful women to one another, simply because you know they are beautiful, had no purpose. It was discordant; the women didn’t understand it.

So, it’s in this context that I have always wondered what people do; I mean, what is truly the meaningful, satisfying activity of life. Like one of those many cinematic or literary parables, when everything up front is revealed to be a façade: what do people really do, what is the clear relevance at the heart of life? Ivan Illych, in Tolystoy’s great novella, remembers meaning in selfless impulses and sacrifice – or just in honest communication, without artifice. This is a beginning, in the quest to understand just what it is that we do.

I have an artificial profession, or an extremely real one. The dignity of work is diminished, it seems, if you don’t make an actual product; fashion something that is useful. Yet I bring people together in shared understanding, comfort those who worry that their labor doesn’t mean much, find ways to strengthen the framework that surrounds their job. This has dignity, because it has a worthwhile purpose.

And now, the simple answer: People go on trips with friends and family. They raise children. They go to work and come home. They read the paper. They take in a night of music. They enjoy themselves at parties. They get married, make vows, set goals and accomplish them. They exercise. They worry. They eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They get involved in causes and intense conversations. They worship. They find art. They exalt each other. They make money, take it in and spend it in ways both sensible and frivolous. These and many more things go into what makes up a life. These are the things we all do. They add up to lives, like multicolored sands add up in a tall glass; filled to the top, it’s the sum and measure of all of our years and experiences.

The moments live, each of them. Make the most of them. Focus. Relax. Call in the good, the best. Let fear blow out through the window with the dust in your home.

An Insoluble Conflict and an "Impossible" Answer

2008-12-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

My grandfather predicted World War III for the Middle East, to commence in 1987. That was back in the early 70’s. He was a war correspondent and newspaper editor, back in the old country, having covered the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 as a cub reporter (the anarchist Gavrilo Principe fired at the royal carriage from 100 feet, with a Baby Browning, an impossible shot. That one bullet killed both the Archduke and his Duchess). It appears that Deszo baci (in Hungarian, baci is a term of respect for an older man, pronounced just like it is in Italian, where it means kiss) was wrong when it would start. Maybe 2009 would be a better prediction.

Because – make no mistake about it – just like in Planet of the Apes, we could blow it all up. It would be a sad ending for so much enlightened striving for what is great, beautiful, and possible. Against a nuclear war, global warming is mild in comparison. Paradoxically, a nuclear war would probably end the threat of global warming, both by creating the famous “nuclear winter,” and also by ending most industrial production, and certainly a lot of consumer demand.

The Gaza Strip is a rectangle about 7 miles wide by 30 miles long. Within those borders live 1.5 million people. On Google Earth, it’s a huge city, and looks a lot like the South Bronx, before the boom of the 90’s. But you can get out of the South Bronx, and you can’t get out of the Gaza Strip. It’s not just the fault of the Israeli state, if one has to ascribe fault at this point in the essay. The Egyptians have the other border sewed up tight, too. It’s like a sausage that’s being cooked and that will eventually burst, like the best Hungarian sausages.

According to a Jewish friend, the Palestinians are “an irrelevancy,” which is a cold-hearted comment I don’t quite understand. Don’t the Jewish sages say, whosoever saves one, saves the whole world? And isn’t there a special place reserved in Israel for the gentiles who heroically saved Jews during the Holocaust? Are the Palestinians any different? I mean, can’t one Palestinian save another one and save the whole world?

No, and here’s the first principle: every person is of equal value. That concept begins the discussion. If the human race were wiped out except for a tribe of Hottentots, those Hottentots would eventually populate the world, and they would have their own Beethoven, Shakespeare and Einstein. So we must reject any ideology that says that any people are special. Isn’t that self-evident? So, we must bring the curtain down on religious beliefs that say the contrary – Orthodox Judaism, right-wing fundamentalist Christianity, and radical Islam. The claims of specialness in religions are atavistic. The idea that I have a moral ground to reject you, because you do not believe as I do, or because you were not baptized, circumcised, or adopted in my special way must go.

Religious differences are not religious. Hateful right-wing racists, or the hateful actions of the State of Israel, or the fatwas of an Imam who sanctions the killing of unbelievers, are not religious. Religion means reconnection – spirituality in the best sense, the sense of being part of a web that includes all living creatures, and holds all that lives as sacred. The actions against global warming may seem to be about people and property, but they are more properly wider than that – because a catastrophic warming would so do much to wreck the delicate ecosystems that make the earth so beautiful. It would not be right to call Israel “the Jewish State,” because while it may be true on one level, it’s false on another. Many Jews are praying for peace to break out, and are doing everything possible to promote understanding. Just as the continual refrain during the Bush years from foreign peoples was that we love Americans, but not your government, so it is with Israel. We must distinguish the actions of the State of Israel from the beautiful spirituality of Judaism.

Is it true that the Palestinians are an irrelevancy, because world oil prices are down, so the industrial giants don’t really care about the potential that a Middle East conflict has to raise oil prices in the near term? Maybe for geopolitical considerations, they are, but not from human considerations. Remember the value of the Hottentots; we must take care not to diminish any human being

So, let’s turn away from any religion which promotes differences. Maybe we should all become Anglican, or Unitarian Universalist. Bring everyone into the tent, and then abolish the tent. We must agree on the definition of a human being, and honor that, in a way reminiscent of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And use our know-how to resolve problems of food scarcity, lack of access to water and health care, and surmounting the population bubble of about 9 billion later this century, before the human race can adjust its numbers peacefully to sustainable levels.

The Climactic Moment

2008-12-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

How not to begin an essay: in the heart of a paradox that only a motivated reader wants to read. This will only draw you in if you want it to.

We sit in the torture cell. The quintessence of the solitary, the alone, the desperate. Why? Because there’s no help there. Whoever is the torturer – whether it’s Jack Bauer (you would have to be the bad guy), renegade government agents, Saddam, Pinochet – it’s down to a test of wills, and to you. Can you measure up? Can you handle it?

This might be an essentially male preoccupation – measuring up against the ultimate test: another male who wants to destroy you, physically and mentally: a battle of the wills. James Bond often faces torturers and prevails; so did John McCain. When I was in elementary school, I had a close friend, Jonathan Silverman, who had a slightly younger brother, David. They would often play torturer and victim, with one affixing a naked light bulb to the bottom of the upper bunk bed and beginning the interrogation. Their dad, a World War II veteran, talked often of the Japs and what they did to prisoners.

Now you are in the room. All the cards have been dealt. It’s time to play your hand – what you have inside, what resiliency and strength you can count on. Where does that strength come from? Is it from memories, rigorous exercise, willpower?

The climactic moment – the time of testing – is a central metaphor in American life. Nothing seems to matter as much as measuring up when the time comes. Gary Cooper in High Noon is just the first example that comes to mind. But let’s step away from that moment from the time of testing. Is it true that life gets summed up in climactic moments?

There can be no true preparation for a moment that doesn’t set all other moments as equal to it. Here’s the paradoxical statement I talked about. As opposed to the idea that nothing counts until the climactic moment, it seems to me that all moments count equally, and what you bring to one moment you bring to all, even to climactic moment.

If there is truly no future and no past, if time is really an illusion, then striving shrinks to the moment of the present. The intense giving of the self to the moment is all. It prepares the way for all other moments, even the climactic moment of testing.

Can there be beautiful and timeless moments, without the whole fabric of reality being beautiful and timeless? No; it must be that we are just not seeing the beauty; it flashes and shines, winking in and out, like stars passing behind a satellite. But the fabric draws together, the more we give ourselves to the moment.

It must be possible to build velocity, so that the moments blend together and one becomes airborne in the light of the moment.

So, the time for bullshit must be over; that is, the time to resist giving in to the moment. The time to resist being the best one can be, giving and striving to the utmost, relaxed, but not in control.

Preparation and anticipation become part of the climactic moment. Just as they do before a sports contest, sex, or the SAT’s -- the waiting, conditioning, imagining, careful planning make the climactic moment stretch out to encompass the moments before. Like the top of a mountain, it’s impossible to really conceive of it without the rest of the mountain being there.

So, sitting in the torture cell, I am the sum of all of my giving to the moment, all of my truthfulness. The torturer folds up his chair. I have remembered who I am.

Bond: Skirting the 21st Century

2008-11-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

I saw James Bond's latest outing, "Quantum of Solace," at the Magic Johnson Theatre on 125th Street in Harlem. And you know, you had to say the title to get a ticket. Kids stepped up to the plate and said the words with annoyance:
"Quantum of Solace"
"Quantum of Solace"
"Quantum of Solace"
The title is arrogant enough for Bond, high-brow enough to be annoying. My Dad, an anglophile in the middle years of his life, commented to me that Bond was "a bit of a bounder," and of course, he is. A killing machine, however necessary to the British empire, is not part of the culture he fights to preserve.

But that is more or less irrelevant to the action flick that's now unreeling on screens coast to coast. And yes, the Bond franchise has come up with another watchable movie, with a twist of relevance. In trying to appeal to its core audience -- kids between 11 and 17 -- the Bond producers did their best to hit an emotional nerve. If you take your kids to the film, you'll be in a position to evaluate if they were successful or not.

Suffice it to say that Bond's target is again hypocrisy -- this time, a self-promoting eco superstar, Dominic Greene, who pretends to be making the world safe for rainforests while he is really plotting to corner the market on water in Bolivia (shades of the IMF!). Greene, a somewhat swishy and ordinary looking guy with a sadistic streak, doesn't really make the grade as a Bond villain (although he turns into an expert in the martial arts when he has his climactic fight with Bond.) So the Bond producers are telling the kids: don't fall for all that green hype. The same plundering corporations are behind it all.

More to the point, the real villain (or at least the co-villain), for the first time, is us: the United States of America. The CIA has formed an alliance with Greene, unashamedly backing rightist elements in Bolivia (as in fact we are doing), and wants Bond dead. The corrupt CIA station chief's deputy, however, is a black man who helps Bond. This new incarnation of Felix Leiter, Bond's spy buddy, makes you wonder if the producers presciently are giving the nod to Obama: it's the principled Black man who may actually rescue this country from its heedless rush to embrace totalitarianism.

So, the only good American is a Black American (says M, Bond's Chief: "I don't give a shit about the CIA"), and the only good corporation is a blown-up corporation. Bond is everyman for himself, and he kills to memorialize his lost love, who drowned at the hands of the bad guys. Revenge, the film seems to say, is the only redemption. Organizations are wretched and corrupt, love is fleeting, and most everyone you sleep with ends up dead. It's all about survival of the fittest. Head to the gym.

Palinontology

2008-09-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Dems are set to blow it again. I've just seen their latest attack ad against McCain/Palin, and it seethes against perceived hypocrisy: Palin was in favor of the "bridge to nowhere" before she was for it. But hey, Dems, and I speak as a registered one of you: you're missing the point! Picking Palin was an audacious choice, out of the box. And it can only be countered by an out of the box attack, such as....

"Palinontology"

:60

Exterior: Barack Obama at the Museum of the Earth, in Ithaca, New York. This is a museum of paleontology -- the study of how life evolved on earth over billions of years. In the museum, Barack walks slowly up an exhibit ramp, that leads slowly upwards, featuring wall panels, each of which display ten million years of evolutionary time.

OBAMA: Life is everywhere on earth, from the most humble to the most complex.

[Camera shows primordial molluscs, shell-like creatures, ancient insects...]

Some of these guys have been around for hundreds of millions of years.

[gestures] This is the Jurassic period, when dinosaurs ruled the earth 150 million years ago. And this is the Cretaceous, when a meteoric impact destroyed almost all life, 65 million years ago.

[He comes to the end of the ramp] Now, this is where my Republican opponent, Sarah Palin, says life began, just eight thousand years ago. She doesn't know what she's talking about. And it's not just about history. No one who doesn't understand these time scales is qualified to understand and interpret science today -- and science holds the keys to our most pressing problems.

No one who doesn't understand science can understand the environment, how chemicals affect species, or genetic engineering. As President, I will support and fund American science -- because our future is too important to be left in the hands of people who cannot understand what has gone before.

My Life Has No Meaning Without You

2008-08-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

Could that be true? Does it matter, so much, whether I live or die, or whether I am happy? We are only privileged to know a small circle of people well, in spite of the media’s determination that we care about the lives of so many who we don’t know. Indeed, many people care more about celebrities than they do about members of their own family – some even care more about fictional characters than about friends or family. Mostly on TV, but this even applies to some characters who appear in books. Not to mention Jesus, who some will give up friends and family for.

I am reminded of Linda Beer, a family friend, whose mother, Margit, survived Auschwitz and still had the heavy, blue, number tattoo on the inside of her right arm when I met her back in the 60’s. Margit Weiss (that was her maiden name) faced Dr. Josef Mengele personally, who signaled that she should go to the right, meaning she would live. Linda found Jesus and is now sad that her mother went to hell, because she didn’t accept Him as her Lord and Savior. Yet, Margit gave hope and comfort to others in the camps, told them to trust in God and have faith. But I digress!

It is only human to form relationships and care deeply. Yet, as New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18224441.600-is-empathy-an-animal-quality.html shows, this is not limited to our species. Many animals do this; the evidence is strong. You can debate whether their caring is similar to our caring, but that seems to be secondary. Another article makes the same point: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19826571.700-so-you-think-humans-are-unique.html

Is it the other person who is so important to us, or the relationship? Margit Weiss, in an audiotape in which she described the events of 1944, remembers that her father gave her words of advice and counsel as the family was being rounded up and separated by the police. Those words stayed with her and gave her strength throughout her ordeal in the camps – yet by that time, her father was long dead. She credits this relationship with saving her life by giving her emotional strength – yet, as I said, her father was dead along with the rest of her family. So a relationship, or the value of a relationship, can survive death.

What we can give, let us give to each other now, in our integrity and commitment to be our best. Perhaps a strong relationship, established on the highest principles of selflessness, is like a mechanism constructed out of the strongest materials and by the best craftsmen. It endures and keeps operating, even if one of the makers is no longer around.

The End of Good Writing

2008-06-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

If Nazi SS troops give shovels to the Jewish intellectuals and order them to dig their own graves, it will help if they can discuss Kierkegaard and Nietzsche while they’re doing it.

From the thousands of dreamers who had no hearers, or who have not seen their hopes for a better world realized, comes this inquiry.

Good writing used to have a purpose, which was to arouse the citizenry – or at least to cause them to think self-critically in a way that would lead to action. Our American experiment posed a great example at the time of the Revolution, when Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, and other activists stirred their fellow countrymen into action.

Today good writing is sinking in the sea of opposing views, relative truths, and the persuasive power of advertising and manipulation. The government and “opinion leaders” know how to control the public, and our democracy would be barely recognizable to the founding fathers. Political positions are pre-digested and presented as boundaries to thinking, as Noam Chomsky observes in his “manufacturing consent.” Polls cited by Chomsky show that the American public wants almost a complete reversal of governmental priorities: a drastic reduction in war spending and a corresponding rise in spending on human services. Yet these priorities are nowhere near being realized, despite the promises of the plutocratic politicians. We are still the world’s arms merchant, and our chemical industry continues to poison the planet.

My impression is that the good writing in journals of opinion read by intellectuals, such as The New Yorker and Harpers is not making much of a dent in the public debate. The gulf between ideas and actions is tremendous. In spite of the ideas, the money culture still rules, the culture of convenience, the culture of disregard of the value of life.

When Pope John Paul II spoke of a “culture of death,” in his encyclical, “Evangelium Vitae” (March 25, 1995), he made a similar point:

“This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic, and political currents which encourage the idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: A life which would require greater acceptance, love, and care is considered useless of held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap, or, more simply, just by existing, compromised the well-being or lifestyle of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of “conspiracy against life” is unleashed.”

The Pope’s talk is unequivocally against abortion and euthanasia, but it is also about materialism:

“The values of being are replaced by those of having. The only goal which counts is the pursuit of one’s material well being. The so-called “quality of life” is interpreted primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure, to the neglect of the more profound dimensions – interpersonal, spiritual, and religious – of existence. In such a context suffering, an inescapable burden of human existence but also a factor of possible human growth, is “censored,” rejected as useless, indeed opposed as an evil always and in every way to be avoided.”

Good writing offers the promise of a better insight into reality, but today it exists in isolation, without a spiritual framework that would give it meaning and urgency. I have given up meat, not as a fashion statement but as a declaration of my conviction that the earth is in environmental peril – and that this is a basic action which helps. It is also informed by my spiritual beliefs. From a spiritual framework, and the relationships between myself and others, come the actions which illuminate and confirm a spiritual direction. The next time you read a well-written essay in your armchair, think about the Nazi guards allowing the prisoners to converse as they dug their own graves.

What You Believe In

2008-05-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

What you believe in clearly has a lot to do with where you put your willpower and what direction you decide to chart in life. Or maybe not. I have met many people who act on – or are governed by – assumptions they don’t consciously hold or recognize.

But let’s focus on conscious beliefs. If I believe in reincarnation, I won’t be so against abortion, since I believe souls will find their way back one way or another. If I believe that homosexuality is sinful, I won’t tolerate gay rights. If I believe that climate change is truly a threat, I will give up meat, since this is the single most significant act to fight global warming that most people could take.

It is said that if a fool were to persist in his folly, he would become wise. So let’s follow our beliefs to their conclusions, and see where they lead. First, I invite you to try on some beliefs, and see if they fit.

The universe is beautiful and supremely ordered, with meaningfulness at every turn, if only we could see it clearly.

There is spiritual help and guidance available at all times, if we want it and are open to it.

We can build our willpower, by meditating and taking the time to search within for the obstructions to acting according to our positive will and intent.

Do you share these beliefs? Do you believe they are completely true, or only partially true? Do you doubt them, but want to believe?

The Guide says it’s important to examine our beliefs, conscious and unconscious, partial and complete, doubting and inbued by faith, because our beliefs shape our view of the world and our possibilities in it. Find the beliefs and you find the man, or woman.

A belief is not just held: it is generally reinforced. Such is clearly the case with the powerful world views which hold sway in our society. We are being indoctrinated every day with society’s beliefs and assumptions: it seems only fair for us to take the time to consciously decide which beliefs are beneficial and which are harmful to us – and to indoctrinate ourselves with the beliefs we hold important.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is a wonderful indoctrination, by a great American, in the values of probity and thrift, effort and dedication, sustaining faith in good works, intellectual curiosity and the essential worth of people. Who can read that book without profiting from it, and who can argue, after having read it, that Franklin did not consciously mold, refine, and reinforce his beliefs? Should we do any less than try to emulate his example of self-reliant study and action on our beliefs?

We need to take our “positive will” and engage it, by asserting the life-affirming things we believe and act on, as Franklin did. Conversely, understanding the danger of negative and destructive beliefs, we should take steps to avoid them or at least to not reinforce them habitually.

Political and moral questions in our society tend to be framed in the discourse of the surrounding culture – but those assumptions may be ones you don’t hold, or wouldn’t hold if you examined them closely. Many beliefs are actually prejudices, as history has shown so well. Unquestioned beliefs are dangerous beliefs. Let’s find out what we truly believe.

“If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention”

2008-04-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

So goes the slogan a few months before the end of the Bush presidency. People should get worked up about the news – Iraq, Afghanistan, taxpayer ripoffs by defense contractors, sex trafficking in Thailand, the abuse of animals. But somehow, people don’t seem to get too excited about all that much.

Today’s New York Post splashes “Miley’s Shame,” a headline about Miley Cyrus, tween sensation, who got photographed in what the Post calls a revealing outfit, but which hardly seems even risqué to me. The Star is talking about Britney’s new bikini body. And that sex scandal with Elliot Spitzer – that certainly took up a lot of column inches. Is it as important as the genocide in Darfur, the plight of the Palestinians, or the ongoing decimation of so many species of plants and animals? Does it carry as much weight as important scientific news, such as the funding struggles over the large supercollider which may reveal fundamental facts about the universe?

Why doesn’t the news seem to matter much, and why is entertainment so easily substituted for it?

Here’s a handy definition: to radicalize: to make radical, especially in politics. If something or someone blows in and opens your eyes to something that was staring you in the face all along, it might make you care. Let’s say you find out your Grandfather was Jewish – it might make you care about the fate of people in death camps. Or that beautiful woman you aspire to date is into fighting nuclear power. You might find yourself heading in that direction.

But if one is not radicalized, one has only ones own internal moral resources to fall back on – and often they’re not that compelling, especially if the crowd is going the other way.

We have all seen those shameful pictures of white people grinning at a lynching, and wondered if we could have been one of that crowd. When Nazi papers published blatantly false characterizations of Jews, most people looked the other way, especially when the truncheons started falling. And was it so hard in Rwanda to look the other way when your Hutu neighbors started coming for the Tutsi friend across the road?

Humanity, we must conclude, is afflicted with indifference and inertia. We tend to go along to get along. But there’s more to it than that.

The news does not spur us to act, unless we’ve either been radicalized, or we’ve developed a moral sense that urges action as a lifestyle. But most of us are content to sit silent and take the entertainment we can get.

There’s even more to it: Somewhere, deep inside, we know that outer events don’t really matter – that it’s only the inner struggle that matters. In fact, the inner struggle controls and forms the outer events. Whatever we do on the inner level changes our circumstances, makes other things possible. While our society believes and fosters the myth that outer events are everything, in our heart of hearts, we know differently. We know that a change of heart means everything: it affects who we love, who we spend time with, the jobs we get, how we cope with crises. In contrast, who becomes Mayor or President, or which Wall Street trader earns a billion has little effect on our lives.

The suffering in Darfur only weighs on us if we have adopted moral action as a part of our lifestyle. Bush’s crimes don’t excite us to anger – if we haven’t been radicalized – because we know that whatever Bush does, does not affect our inner struggle to understand and transform ourselves. A radical political agenda may be part and parcel of who we are – but not in most cases.

TV and the news are, to a great extent, about what could kill us – be afraid, be very afraid! But, deep inside, we know that nothing outside kills us. The only real death is spiritual death, ourselves abandoning ourselves. This reduces news to entertainment, even the “watch out, it could be you” type of news. Deadly toxins are seeping into our water supply, terrorists are sneaking in nukes, Bush is getting away with torture. You see, those things don’t really matter to the inner struggle, which is the center of human life. So we ignore them. But this is not to put down or diminish the need for radical struggle. Please follow me in the paradox.

If people really acted in their “rational self-interest,” acting on the news they received, the world would certainly be a very different place. But I must caution my radical friends that “rational self interest” doesn’t exist. The only true interest is the imperative of spiritual growth.

The impulse to create order and beauty in one’s own life, by facing the evil within and transforming it, is the only great motivator. If unrecognized, the evil comes out with a vengeance – and that’s what we see in so many of the news stories. But only by facing our own evil through the inner struggle can we prevail – not by taking arms against a sea of troubles and leaving our inner landscape undisturbed.

The Locket

2008-04-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

There was a late-night rush to get out of the car and off to bed. We had been out late and it was the end of a long day. My daughters, 5 and 8, came out clutching their toys and baby strollers with dolls securely belted in. I had found a good spot where the car could sit for a week without having to move it for street cleaning. In the rush to get out of the car and up to our apartment in Cobble Hill, it was inevitable that something would be dropped or lost. This time it turned out to be Elaine's flower locket, a plastic toy advertised on TV which promised to sprout a flower from soil if gently watered and placed in a sun-filled window. Both Elaine and Samantha had received such a locket as a casual present the day before.

In the morning we discovered that Elaine's locket was gone, to much distress. Of course, I went back to the car and peered inside, then scoured the ground under and around the gray Mazda 626, without success. The other locket -- placed in a bright window by both girls, was watered dilligently but did not sprout. After two days, more watering, and a move to another window, no flower appeared.

A week later, it was time to move the car. I remember getting into the driver's seat on a cold early March morning, noticing as I did so that the sun had heated the air in the car and that a trace of moisture seemed to linger inside. I looked down at the door pocket, and there, on the driver's side, was the other locket, doubtless left there by Elaine for safekeeping in a secure place. From the top a single green leaf grew, next to a tiny flower. Without wind and rain, with only sunlight and the moisture that had condensed inside the car, undisturbed, the flower had blossomed.

Loving Daisy

2008-04-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

A woman steps out onto the stage.
We are born to make this journey.
She has the humility and dignity, the true pride of the indigenous peoples.
She says: I am here, rooted in the earth and the earth's peoples,
With all their passion and their intense claim on life.

You don't ask for Daisy's hand with your will alone, but instead by the most profound commitment to your best self. You bring yourself into the place where she lives by that commitment. By placing yourself in that sacred space, you make her arrival inevitable.

Daisy is proud, beautiful, and powerful. She is always in motion. She moves freely on the stage. Other men will seek her, but I am sharing the dance with her now. As I reinvent myself, we begin another dance together.

A letter to the writers at the New York Times

2007-12-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

Journalists everywhere are reminded to consider the pithy summary of their mission: to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. There’s much too much massaging of the comfortable, and certainly the editors at The Times know this, although the Times is complicit in much of it.

But don’t get me wrong: most mornings, I eagerly look forward to the national conversation which is the content of the Times. Is it flawed? Of course – but it’s only in the embracing of our own imperfections that we grow.

If society is a jungle, tempered by necessary codes of conduct including the famous social contract between the governed and those who govern, then the press operates within a jungle setting. And in a jungle, victory generally goes to the strong, and those who are able to win success within a group. Of such lions is most press coverage made. See the word lionize, which I interpret to mean the heaping of praise on someone already at the top.

The people who lionize generally win the lion’s favor – and this is certainly at work in much journalism – witness the corrupt fawning of the Russian media around Putin. Those press organs courageous or powerful enough not to lionize often still do it reflexively, and for compelling reasons – not the least of which is the fact that (most) everyone likes a winner.

The people who richly deserve a drubbing generally get off with a slap. Witness the recent excellent article by Gretchen Morgenson and Geraldine Fabrikant about Angelo Mozilo, who built Countrywide up into the nation’s largest marketer of subprime loans, and became fabulously rich in the process. In this article, Morgenson and Fabrikant show that Mr. Mozillo is a greedy SOB, take a bow, and then walk off the stage, leaving Mr. Mozilo to bask in a generally flattering press environment, stoked by his PR dollars. Because the story "has already been done," the Times will have no further comment unless he gets indicted or is otherwise the subject of scandal. Most likely, most other journalists will be properly deferential, because of the amount of money Countrywide has at its disposal.

My point is that the outing and shaming of the greedy, who benefit at the expense of the needy, doesn’t go nearly far enough. Part of the reason is that the press is controlled by corporate interests who exert a powerful influence behind the scenes. The “free press” isn’t really free. For example, let’s say you want to take out an add campaign around Thanksgiving that urges people to stay home on Friday and not shop. No commercial TV or radio station will agree to carry it. Same if you take out an ad urging people to, say, not buy anti-wrinkle creams on the ground that they don’t work. Again, your ad will be refused because it poisons the business climate for selling – or because an advertiser already in the station’s stable will object, which amounts to the same thing. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and that also goes for concepts like freedom.

Because the lions are complicit in the destruction of our environment, and, consequently, in the extinction of numerous species, the loss of biodiversity, and consequently in the impoverishment of mankind, they must be named and shamed, and not given a free pass. Unfortunately, that goes for many of your advertisers. Celebrate those who would undo the destruction, and who recognize it for what it is.

Letter Exchange with Mayor Bloomberg

2007-05-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

Alan Saly
570 44th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11220

March 27, 2007
Hon. Michael Bloomberg
MAYOR
City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mr. Mayor:

I was in the audience tonight in Sunset Park for your presentation to the community. I appreciated your frankness about many issues before us, and your unwillingness to give pat answers which would please the public, but which may be inaccurate or misleading.

On one front, however, I believe your comments missed the mark -- when you said that America must have a yearly influx of immigrants, at the level of 400,000 to 500,000, or risk a future in which “there won’t be enough workers to pay your social security benefits.”

Surely, there is a logical flaw with this position. About 25 years ago, I interviewed the noted scientist and writer Isaac Asimov for a magazine article. I asked Asimov what he thought was the optimum population for the United States, in order to maintain sustainability, and he replied that he thought it was about 150 million. Today, there are 300 million Americans.

You embrace with gusto the prospect of almost a million more New Yorkers in the next 20 years. I enjoy the richness and diversity of the City as much as you do, and it would be wonderful if we lived in a world of infinite resources. However, the scientific evidence is undeniable that our life style is not sustainable. In 2000, 12% of birds, 21% of amphibians, 24% of mammals, 25% of reptiles, 29% of invertebrates, and 30% of fish species were classified as threatened (IUCN). The numbers are higher today.

The footprint of the average American (the amount of land required to resource the lifestyle of one person) is 9.7 hectares, according the New Scientist magazine – the largest per capita footprint on earth. Surely, we don’t need to continue in this direction and champion population growth.

I fear that you are wearing rose-colored glasses when you say that sustainability can go hand in hand with population growth. I encourage you to question that point of view, regardless of the fact that to declare that population growth is not desirable is not politically correct. Perhaps you can meditate on this when your term ends and you take your well-deserved one week’s vacation.

Sincerely,

Alan J. Saly

May 12, 2007

Hon. Michael Bloomberg
MAYOR
City of New York
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mr. Mayor:

Thank you for your carefully thought-out reply to my recent letter about population growth in New York City. I have reviewed the plaNYC website, and see there the fruits of much constructive thought and engagement with the issues of population growth and responsibility for our environment.

I am concerned however that we may be going down the wrong path. I understand your letter and your public posture on these ideas as the natural product of your genuine optimism, self-reliance, and conviction that it is possible for us as a society to overcome all odds. This reminds me (and I don’t mean to make an invidious comparison), of former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern’s frequent invocations of his childhood in New York City, where a public school and City College education was an opportunity to associate with the finest minds of his generation and everything seemed possible to anyone who had the wit to seize it.

To be optimistic is necessary, but it is also necessary to accept when limitations have been reached. I believe that – just as anthropogenic warming is creating something unprecedented in history – the human race is pushing up against limitations which will have unforeseen effects. For this reason, it’s crucially important that we be very cautious and prudent. Planning for a New York City with a million more people – no matter if this is done by our best thinkers and urban planners – may be a grave mistake. It may be better to find ways to avert or curtail this population increase – such as tax credits for smaller families and more serious restrictions on immigration. I realize that this would be extremely difficult, both practically and politically.

I understand that your point of view is that we can take the population increase in stride, and still create a more livable City. Would you be willing to question that assumption? Looking into the future, I see a continued downward spiral in wages for the average worker, a continued increase in income inequality as more and more people have less and less work. Even you are apparently interested in reducing pensions for new City workers, creating the specter of poverty in their old age. It doesn’t seem that anything will replace the mighty manufacturing engine that created the American prosperity which Henry Stern remembers so well. Capitalism is consuming the average worker with debt, and “financializing” all aspects of life. At the same time, the future of our biosphere is in the balance.

Please think about the issues I have raised in this letter and especially about the ramifications of a growing NYC population. I was proud to vote for you in the last election, and salute your management.

Sincerely,

Alan J. Saly

Ameriscam

2007-04-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

Who was that Science Fiction writer who said 95% of everything is crud? Or was it 15%?

What percentage of commercial transactions are simply scams? I may be romanticizing the past, but it seems that a growing amount of the profits made by corporations and people, in their dealings with other people, are unfair or exploitative. The best example is the practices of the credit card companies, which make huge amount of profit by using practices which can't pass the smell test -- such as a bank's raising interest rates on accounts when a borrower makes a late payment on any loan or debt he or she has, whether it's due to that particular bank or not. Or the relentless fishing for new customers, profiling them for the likelihood of not being able to resist credit, of not being able to pay on time, and then of being on the hook for high interest and/or late payments.

Another example are the tried-and-true legal cons to entice the sucker and separate him or her from their money: bait and switch, cornering the market and upping prices, taking advantage of buyer ignorance (such as the famous undercoating sold by auto dealerships), and taking advantage of buyer goodwill (such as the person who is purchasing goods for a party or celebration when he or she is in a magnanimous mood.)

It's a bad way to make money, creating resentment in the buyer and justified guilt in the seller.

Caveat Emptor!

The Trellis

2006-05-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

A trellis is a framework on which vines can grow. If you want to help a vine establish itself, a trellis -- which is often just a grid of thin wooden slats -- may be necessary.

It's hard to grow without a framework on which to rest, a model of what you're aiming at, or a defined direction.

The framework is beneficial because it creates order, which in turn creates focus and calm. It excludes other possibilities, and conquers chaos, to use the title of a great SF novel by John Brunner.

Recently, I went to the dentist, full of worry because I thought that I had serious problems with my teeth. I had gotten the impression, over the last year or so, that I had a number of cavities, in addition to some cosmetic work that needed doing -- and perhaps one weak tooth, which would need a bridge.

I got to his office, and he did a thorough examination, which brought good news: my teeth are strong (even the one I thought was weak), and the dental work needed is not nearly as much as I had feared. So the dentist's examination provided a new framework for my understanding of my dental health: rather than worry needlessly, I can now focus on simple oral hygiene, get the work I need, and not have to spend extra energy on being concerned that, all of a sudden, I'll have a dental emergency on my hands.

So, to get back to our metaphor, the trellis -- the framework upon which the vine of my understanding about my dental health can grow -- is the dentist's examination and his informed opinion. Without that, I am in chaos about my dental situation and my choices.

So it is with life in general. Having a framework of meaning, whether it's furnished by religion, your company, an authority figure, a parent, etc. is essential to creating the order which allows you to go forward with confidence. In the above example, I received a framework of meaning about my teeth from a recognized authority, the dentist. A soldier may receive a framework of meaning from his commanding officer, allowing him to go forward in confidence with the battle. Or a politician may receive that framework from a party leader, etc.

My point here is that a structure of meaning is necessary for life.

What is your structure of meaning? Who do you depend on to explain the world and give it purpose?

On My Mind

2006-05-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

I had a reaction today to the death of New York Times writer and editor A. M. Rosenthal -- I was jealous of his career. For 60 years, he had written for the world's most influential newspaper. Millions had seen his byline, and tens of thousands had actually read his articles -- many of them among the world's most influential people.

But he's dead, Jim. And it makes little sense to be jealous of someone who's dead.

And then again... I'm proud of many of the articles I've written, even if the most read of them had a readership much lower than of Rosenthal's least read. (Well, you get what I'm trying to say -- Eloquent Adam)

For instance, there was that article about a New York City ambulance crew who wrestled with a mortally wounded AIDS patient in the mid 80's, a man who had committed suicide by impaling himself on the jagged glass of a broken window. The crew carried him down four flights in a rundown apartment building in the Bronx, while he wrestled against them, thrashing as he bled profusely from a slashed subclavian artery. That was a pretty good one.

Then there was the piece I wrote about the Plenty Ambulance Corps, in the Bronx, in 1979 -- a group of Tennessee hippies who decided to come out to the burned out South Bronx and provide a free community ambulance service. You can see a couple of their kids on my website, the shot labeled, "two bronx babies."

And that was a nice story I wrote about Douglas Edwards of CBS News and his trusty and loyal producer, Richard Kallsen, doing The World Tonight. That appeared in "The West-Sider," or perhaps it was "The Chelsea-Clinton News," anyway, nowhere near the readership of the Times.

So, after reflection, I'm proud of my stories, but jealous of A. M. Rosenthal's reach. Was it the recognition he received, the fact that he was admired and respected around the world -- and, probably, resented by some as well. Was it the encomiums, the armor of influence?

Is the world big enough for both of us? (He's dead, Jim.)

It must be, and to all the other A. M. Rosenthals, I say, bring it on, do your best, your fellow writer salutes you!

Leo Gerard to Speak in New York City

2006-05-11T08:20:00.000-07:00

Media Advisory

Event: 1^st Annual Sumner Rosen Memorial Lecture Set for May 18; Leo Gerard, Steelworkers’ President, To Deliver Keynote Talk on Publicly-Supported, National Health Care

Date/Time: Thursday, May 18: Reception 6:00 pm; Lecture 6:45 pm – 8 pm

Place: SEIU 32BJ Auditorium, 101 6^th Avenue, Manhattan (at Grand Street)

Contact: Alan Saly – LCG Communications: 718.853.5568; alan@lcgcommunications.com

Leo Gerard, one of the nation’s most prominent labor leaders, and an outspoken proponent of national health care for all, will be the keynote speaker at the First Annual Sumner Rosen Lecture on Thursday, May 18^th @ SEIU 32BJ headquarters. The event, which will be chaired by Ed Ott, Political Director of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, is presented by The Five Borough Institute and Rekindling Reform, and is co-sponsored by more than 25 labor, health care, religious, community and other organizations.

Mr. Gerard’s address, entitled, “The Labor Movement and United Action for Health Care for All,” will officially launch the Sumner Rosen Lecture and Advocacy Fund. Sumner Rosen was a prominent academic and labor activist who passed away in August of 2005, leaving a legacy of advocating universal access to health care and occupational and environmental protection for all. He was a founder of the Five Borough Institute and Professor Emeritus of Social Work and Social Policy at Columbia University.

Leo Gerard, the son of a miner, is the President of North America’s largest industrial union, the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, (commonly referred to as the Steelworkers’ Union) representing over 850,000 active members. His address comes at a time when the labor movement is re-thinking its approach to national health care legislation. Mr. Gerard is expected to address issues of universal coverage, cost control, and prescription drug coverage.

Your coverage is welcome.

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About Rekindling Reform: Rekindling Reform is a joint project of more than 65 organizations in New York State aimed at moving our nation toward affordable quality health care for all by stimulating informed public discussion and helping to build a social movement to accomplish this goal - www.rekindlingreform.org

About the Five Borough Institute: The Institute is a non-partisan research and educational organization whose mission is to encourage the development and implementation of sound and progressive public policies. Its focus is on urban economic and political issues, especially those that affect New York City and it surrounding region, including global economic forces that threaten the jobs and livelihood of working people - www.fiveborough.org

Co-Sponsoring Organizations: AFSCME DC 37●Committee of Interns & Residents SEIU●Communications Workers of America Local 1180● Community Service Society of New York●Congregation B’nai Jeshurun● Congress of Senior Citizens●Cornell Labor Programs●Council Municipal Retiree Organizations●Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition●Healthcare NOW●Jews For Economic and Racial Justice●Joseph Murphy Institute for Labor & Public Affairs● Long Island Coalition of National Health Plans●Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University●Make the Road by Walking●Metro NY Health Care for All Campaign●National Association of Social Workers NYC Chapter●National Jobs for All Coalition●New Immigrant Community Empowerment●NYC Labor Council for Latin American Advancement●New York Committee for Occupational Safety & Health●New York Immigration Coalition● New York Jobs With Justice● New York State Nurses Association● Physicians for a National Health Program●Professional Staff Congress CUNY, AFT, AFL-CIO●Public Health Association of NYC●Transport Workers Union Local 100●United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1500●United University Professors●Workers Defense League

2006-05-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

Answers can be found within, but the blogosphere helps!